Senator Bill Nelson has called for a recount. Do the vote margins in his race against Rick Scott call for one?
Nate Chute, IndyStar

Bins filled with ballots are stacked at the Broward County Supervisor of Elections office as employees count ballots during a recount Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2018, in Lauderhill, Fla.(Photo: Wilfredo Lee/AP)

TALLAHASSEE – In a move that has been reported to federal prosecutors, a Democratic party official directed staffers and volunteers to share altered election forms with voters a day after the midterm election that left two major races too close to call.

The altered forms surfaced in Broward, Santa Rosa, Citrus and Okaloosa counties, and were referred to federal investigators as possible election fraud, as Florida counties complete a required recount in the races for governor and the U.S. Senate.

But the USA TODAY Network obtained a Nov. 7 email from Jennifer Kim, the party's central Florida deputy field director, that shows Florida Democrats were organizing a broader, statewide effort beyond those counties to give voters the altered forms.

The form is an affidavit – known as a "cure affidavit" – to fix signature problems on absentee ballots. The unaltered affidavits instruct the voter that it must be mailed in time for election supervisors to get it by 5 p.m. on Nov. 5. Democratic party leaders provided staffers with copies that had been modified to include an inaccurate Nov. 8 deadline.

One Palm Beach Democrat said in an interview the idea was to have voters fix and submit as many absentee ballots as possible with the altered forms in hopes of later including them in vote totals if a judge ruled such ballots were allowed.

U.S. Chief Judge Mark Walker ruled Thursday that voters should have until Saturday to correct signatures on ballots, a move that could open the door for these ballots returned with altered forms to be counted. Gov. Rick Scott, who leads Nelson by less than 13,000 votes in the recount, will appeal the ruling, his campaign said shortly after the judge issued the order.

The Democratic Party email was sent before U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and his party allies filed a series of lawsuits challenging some voting rules that applied during the election, claiming they disenfranchised voters.

A recount is also underway in the race state agriculture commissioner.

Democratic Party Executive Director Juan Penalosa did not immediately respond Thursday to requests for comment about the use of the altered forms.

The party compiled a list of voters across the state who had their vote-by-mail ballots ruled ineligible because of signature problems.

“These are people that submitted VBMs before Election Day and did not sign them properly,” wrote Kim, who also served as deputy training director, in the Nov. 7 email to party staffers and volunteers.

It is not clear how many altered forms were sent across the state, but Kim's email outlined a step-by-step process for volunteers and staffers to follow in order to get as many voters as possible to submit the altered form three days after the deadline.

“The voters MUST print out the form and sign it by hand,” Kim wrote in the email that attached copies of the altered forms in both English and Spanish. The email also included a sheet with the contact information of all election supervisors in the state.

Among those Democrats on Kim's email was Joe Walters of Brandon, listed by the Nelson campaign as a recount contact.

Kim was clear that staffers should target people who submitted absentee vote-by-mail ballots before Election Day and did not sign them properly. Her email subject line said "VBM signature cure instructions" and labeled the list of voters to be contacted as "VBM signature chases."

That same day, however, state Democratic Party Chair Terrie Rizzo wrote on a private Facebook page that efforts to fix ballots should be focused on provisional ballots, which were handled separately with a Nov. 8 deadline for voters to fix any issues.

"Hi all. Once again, to clarify: the activity taking place today is for provisional ballots. Not absentee ballots," Rizzo's note read.

Provisional ballots do not need to be corrected to be accepted by a county's canvassing board, but voters can provide additional information to help resolve any outstanding issues. They also use a separate state form for voters to complete when filing a provisional ballot.

Kim's email instructed staff and volunteers to contact voters about their signature problems on the absentee ballots, to complete the form on the phone with the voter and to email the completed form to the voter.

The voter was instructed to print the form and to sign it. Kim's email instructed the party workers to tell voters to deliver the signed form to their local election office.

Kim told staffers that voters should reply back to them after they delivered the forms at the party's email, vote@floridadems.org. That email was also included in documents Florida election officials referred to federal prosecutors in connection to the altered forms received by Broward and the other three counties.

CLOSE

The recounting of Senate and gubernatorial ballots is underway in Florida's second most-populous county after it fixed problems with its machines. (Nov. 11)
AP

“If needed (party) staff or volunteer should go pick up their affidavit and deliver it for them if they are not able to deliver by 5 p.m. Thursday. (Each office should identify a runner that can do this.),” her email states.

“We will also follow with a tracking system for people who we send affidavits," Kim told staffers.

Pam Keith, a Palm Beach County Democrat, came under fire Wednesday after Republicans circulated a screenshot of a Nov. 7 deleted tweet she sent to about 22,000 of her Twitter followers, encouraging people to submit forms to fix their absentee ballots two days after the state-mandated deadline.

She then directed people to email Katharine Priegues, a field organizer with the Florida Democratic Party, with the subject line "I want to help" for instructions on what to do.

Keith told the USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida that she was aware the deadline to submit those forms had expired, even though she was telling them there was still time to fix their absentee ballots.

"I was trying to show that if given notice, voters would try to fix their ballots," Keith said. "I was putting the word out because I was anticipating a challenge of that deadline (in court)."

Keith knew that because the deadline had passed, it was almost guaranteed forms submitted by voters on Nov. 8 would be rejected by election supervisors, who were under "no obligation to accept the affidavits."

"But better to have evidence in hand," Keith said.

That evidence would be a record of emails sent by voters who wanted to fix their absentee ballots but couldn't do so because they couldn't meet the state-imposed deadline.

She said she doesn't consider what she was doing election fraud.

"It is not fraud to try and correct something. There's nothing fraudulent about that," she said.

After Walker's ruling to allow voters more time to fix signature problems on absentee ballots, Keith said the actions that she and other Democrats took to help voters with the altered forms were justified.

"The deadline wasn't 'wrong,' per se. It was functionally meaningless and arbitrary," Keith said. "Most people never get notice, and many ballots weren't even looked at until the deadline had passed."

The Department of State, which oversees elections, raised concerns about the altered forms, arguing that making changes to state forms is a criminal offense in Florida. The forms were forwarded on Friday to federal prosecutors.

Federal law defines election fraud to include preventing voters from participating in a federal election "through such tactics as disseminating false information" about the race, as outlined in an Oct. 25 letter to Florida's state department by Assistant U.S. Attorney Harry C. Wallace in Miami.

Wallace, who is handling federal election complaints in Florida, declined to comment Wednesday when contacted about an investigation into the altered forms.

"Making or using an altered form is a criminal offense under Florida law," wrote Bradley McVay, the state department’s lawyer, when he referred the altered forms circulated in Broward and three other counties to federal prosecutors.

"More fundamentally, altering a form in a manner that provides the incorrect date for a voter to cure a defect (or an incorrect method as it related to provisional ballots) imposes a burden on the voter significant enough to frustrate the voter’s ability to vote," he said.